Neil Postman is generally considered a thoughtful liberal critic of technology and its deleterious effect on our culture. My friends praise his attacks on television and rethinking of education. But it’s hard for me to take him seriously after reading his The Disappearance of Childhood, in which he argues (p. 87) that television is bad because it teaches children homosexuality is normal and praises the Moral Majority as being the only group to realize this important truth. And true, he admits it’s an exaggeration to say “such a situation necessarily and categorically signifies cultural degeneration”, he does insist it clearly “poses dangers”.
Postman’s argument is that childhood is the creation of the printing press, which led to a culture in which learning to read was necessary to become an adult, and thus children became a separate group. In the same way, he argues, the emergence of television, which requires no special training to view, is destroying the distinction between children and adults and bringing us back to that pre-literate age.
Not once does Postman ever explain why this should be considered a bad thing. Instead, his book simply assumes it’s obvious that we need to pretend to keep kids from naughty words (even though they know them anyway), that we need to make it hard for kids to learn about sex, that we need to pretend for them that political leaders are infallible, etc.
One is almost tempted to believe the book is tounge-in-cheek, an impression assisted by the preface to the second edition — the only place where actual children are ever considered — which quotes letters Postman has received from students who have read portions of the book and disagree completely with his argument that childhood is disappearing. They don’t, however, criticize childhood itself, so Postman assumes they are in favor of it and praises them as “a force in preserving childhood”, a sort of “moral majority”.
And this, in miniature, is the problem with the whole book. Postman investigates the history of childhood and modern thought, finding it a creation of the printing press, and thus a social and not a biological entity. But instead of investigating whether the result was good or bad, he simply ignores his own work and proceeds directly to assuming it must be good. What we are witnessing here is not the disappearance of childhood, but the disappearance of thought.
Seems like warmed-over McLuhan, and like McLuhan, easy to poke holes in some of the less coherent premises. For one thing, the 21st century economy requires more educated students than ever before, so the importance of literacy shows no sign of declining. As if the kids were going back to work in the sweatshops or out in the fields!
Funny, by the way, how conservatives are supposed to want to turn back the clock on all sorts of things, and here’s one who’s so afraid of doing so!
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 28, 2006 #
Postman is a McLuhan contemporary, I believe. Postman considers work training in school as part of the trend towards killing childhood. His literacy is stuff like the fine arts, rhetoric, etiquette, and prudish modesty, none of which seem particularly necessary for jobs “the 21st century economy”.
Postman is generally considered to be a man of the left (tho clearly of the Jerry Mander-style segment), not the right, and in the book he specifically attacks the so-called radicals for actually turning back the clock.
posted by Aaron Swartz
on January 28, 2006 #
Postman is generally considered to be a man of the left.
Wow. Based on how you describe his rhetoric,
that’s pretty amusing.
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 28, 2006 #
His problem is a simple one, and one that is nearly fundamental in our society. He assumes that childhood is defined by “innocence” (I don’t know if he specifically uses that term, but I always hear it in discussions like this), which, to much of adult society, is a euphemism for ignorance.
With this positive-sounding euphemism in place, we proceed to assume that it is a positive property that must be preserved at all costs, until someone is not a child anymore, at which point they are allowed to stop being innocent for some reason. It’s all very arbitrary, but that’s where society gets the obsession with “protecting” children from dirty words (whose dirtiness itself is equally arbitrary), from sex, etc. That’s why society flipped out when Janet Jackson’s right nipple was shown on TV for a half a second or something. “Think of the children! How dare you allow the innocent children, um,… during an age between toddlerhood and adolescence, to see a nipple!” It’s all very bizarre.
Also that’s why parents tell pointless lies to their children — Santa Claus, for example. “Oh, look, I lied to little Jimmy, and he believes me! How cute! How innocent!” Of course, a lot of that is also a means of manipulating children by abusing their trust and impressionability. But parents do try to defend it as an “innocent” fantasy, and thus something unquestionably positive for children.
… I hate that word. That concept. If that’s really what childhood represents to society, then I’ve no objections to furthering the “disappearance of childhood.”
posted by Adam
on January 28, 2006 #
Hey, don’t diss Santa Claus. He’s my friend.
posted by
on January 28, 2006 #
No, but really, a “pointless lie”? Isn’t that a bit much? Parents push the myth of Santa Claus simply because they want to confirm their kids’ gullibility? No, kids crave all sorts of fantasies as a normal part of their development.
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 28, 2006 #
It all depends on your worldview, Aaron.
In mine, homosexuality is a failure of affective development, though of course I harbor no ill will towards such folks, being highly aware of all my own weaknesses in other areas of life.
And innocence is a desirable state for children. “Dirtiness” is not arbitrary, though clearly there are gray areas.
Why should an 8-year-old have to know in gory detail about all the ugly things that adults do in their worst moments? Murder, rapine, wars, etc.?
That’s Postman’s point: Children will grow up soon enough to be adults, and, once they’re at or close to adulthood, will be exposed to the ugliness of parts of human life, and will have to deal with it. But he (and I) claim that, to grow up with a healthy sense that the world is not a terribly place, children need an emotional “space” that’s certainly not free of all evil (not possible), but at least not full of it, either.
Our kids have grown up without television or radio, and now that some of them are adults (our eldest is 23, youngest 5), I think they agree with our decision and they’re a lot happier folks this way.
Besides, who has time for television, even assuming it was a desirable way to spend time (which is certainly is not—at best it’s a banal waste of time)? Our kids have always been educated at home, and have way too much to do, between lessons, work, and (lots of) play. Kids need leisure to grow up, time for contemplation and reflection.
I can heartily recommend “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” in which Postman argues convincingly that television, even at its very best and most serious, can never be more than titillation and entertainment.
(Jerry Mander makes the same arguments, but I think a little more speculatively.)
posted by Chris Ryland
on January 28, 2006 #
This isn’t a “worldview”, it’s a belief; one unsupported by the evidence.
Nobody’s proposing a system of mandatory education of 8 year olds in violence. Nobody’s insisting we raise children in an emotional space full of evil. Nobody’s saying we should encourage them to watch television. But what’s wrong with letting them say certain words or allowing them to wear certain clothes? What’s wrong with letting them know adults have sex and Santa Claus doesn’t exist? The burden of proof is on those who would restrain children and they present no arguments.
posted by Aaron Swartz
on January 28, 2006 #
“Why should an 8-year-old have to know in gory detail about all the ugly things that adults do in their worst moments? Murder, rapine, wars, etc.?”
Maybe so they can understand history? They’re in what, 4th grade by then? It’s attitudes like the above that have taken all of the value out of public education in this country. The idea that education must be watered down and censored to preserve innocence and so as not to offend anyone, right up until a student enters college, is a gross disservice to America’s youth and to their social development.
“Nobody’s proposing a system of mandatory education of 8 year olds in violence. Nobody’s insisting we raise children in an emotional space full of evil.”
Actually, that sounds like the public school I attended. Lots of murders and rapes, even more suicide, very little educational content, and a huge emphasis on sports. It would be hard to design a better system for oppressing people without the majority of them figuring out they’re being deliberately oppressed.
posted by Andrew
on January 28, 2006 #
Aaron asks if I have any evidence for my statement that kids naturally engage in fantasy. No, not really, but it seems obvious to me as a parent of two (eldest in kindergarten). Young kids seem to be able to make a game out of anything. I’m not a psychologist and don’t fully understand why playing games is so important to development, but it clearly is. Fantasies seem to be a similar way of playing with concepts, and I get the impression it’s a way of making sense of all the jumbled information kids take in. (Only when you get older do you start to learn things methodically and sequentially.) It may be related to dreams: how one of their purposes may be to help process each day’s data, and perhaps spin stories about what might happen the next day (according to one theory I’m probably stating clumsily). In more concrete terms, it makes sense on some level to believe in a benevolent Santa Claus who rewards well-behaved kids with presents. The alternative concept — that self-control is its own reward — is a far more difficult concept for young kids. Same thing with the tooth fairy: losing teeth as a valuable rite of passage to adulthood.
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 28, 2006 #
In mine, homosexuality is a failure of affective development, though of course I harbor no ill will towards such folks, being highly aware of all my own weaknesses in other areas of life.
Interesting.
And innocence is a desirable state for children. “Dirtiness” is not arbitrary, though clearly there are gray areas.
I think perhaps you mean naiveness, not innocence.
Why should an 8-year-old have to know in gory detail about all the ugly things that adults do in their worst moments? Murder, rapine, wars, etc.?
That’s Postman’s point: Children will grow up soon enough to be adults, and, once they’re at or close to adulthood, will be exposed to the ugliness of parts of human life, and will have to deal with it.
Even more reason to prepare children for what is out there. One problem I have with sheltering children from the realities of the world is that people tend to accept the way the world is instead of changing it. If you think the world is such a horrible place, do something to change that. Sheltering your children from it does no good. You could possibly argue that sheltering them could result in emotionally healthier adults, but I would counter that if you explain things well enough to an unsheltered child, love them, etc, it would be a non-issue.
Life is experience. I am Pro-Experience. I want to expose my children to life and be there to help explain it. The earlier they understand the world, the more time they have to process it and hopefully be motivated to create beneficial change. This does not mean I advocate sitting a three year old down in front of a television and playing pornography and violence. But I will not unnecessarily shelter them from life, thought, experience.
I agree with the sentiments of Mander and television, for the most part, turn it off. Teach them not to be fearful, empower them, and help them understand the world. Create a world where this argument doesn’t exist, where the thought of sheltering children is foreign (unfortunately this can mean many different things to many different people).
But he (and I) claim that, to grow up with a healthy sense that the world is not a terribly place, children need an emotional “space” that’s certainly not free of all evil (not possible), but at least not full of it, either.
Is it not possible to expose children to all of life, emphasizing that among all of this evil and hatred there is vastly more beauty, wonder, love, “amazingness” (couldn’t think of proper word). We focus so much on the negative, perhaps in the hope that we will do something to change it. Life is wondrous. And if you expose children to that, get them to understand that, all the ugliness of the world will not harm them. It will motivate them, bring about their compassion, and compel them to action.
Actually, that sounds like the public school I attended. Lots of murders and rapes, even more suicide, very little educational content, and a huge emphasis on sports. It would be hard to design a better system for oppressing people without the majority of them figuring out they’re being deliberately oppressed.
Unfortunately, the public school system is designed to create an obedient work force. When people complain about the state of our educational system, I wonder if they have ever stopped to think that it is extremely well designed for its purpose. If you are a ruler, an educated/aware populace can be a bad thing.
posted by Sean Abrahams
on January 28, 2006 #
I find a couple of Sean’s assumptions suspect: first, that some nefarious power is responsible for public schools’ shortcomings, as opposed to, say, institutional inertia. In my experience, managers don’t prize their dull, obedient employees. And many powerful politicians have worked hard to upset the educational establishment. This focus on power relationships seems to be a recurring theme here, as when Adam suggested parents tell their kids about Santa Claus in order to prove they can lie to them, as if to establish their dominance. In both cases it strikes me as a very odd way to look at it.
Second, the idea that exposing kids to all sorts of realities earlier produces better results than sheltering them. One comment in particular jumped out at me: One problem I have with sheltering children from the realities of the world is that people tend to accept the way the world is instead of changing it. The ugly “realities of the world” include a lot of stuff you have no control over. My brother-in-law, my daughter’s uncle, died horribly of cancer last year, and her day-care provider the year before that, so I have recent experience on this front. Indeed, the fact that we have so little control over such large matters can be particularly distressing to kids who are developing the confidence to master their environment. You have far, far less influence on the world at large than on your child.
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 29, 2006 #
Maybe so they can understand history? They’re in what, 4th grade by then? It’s attitudes like the above that have taken all of the value out of public education in this country. The idea that education must be watered down and censored to preserve innocence and so as not to offend anyone, right up until a student enters college, is a gross disservice to America’s youth and to their social development.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You can certainly tell a 4th grader about wars, etc., at some level of abstraction, and that’s inevitable, of course. But you don’t have to show them pictures of the latest Tsutsi massacres (to pick one modern war at random) to get the point across.
And you don’t keep them at the same level of abstraction all the way up until they enter college. On the contrary, our goal as home educators is to get them “up to speed” on all this nonsense (and a lot of other sensical stuff), though with a healthy world-view that says evil is not the last word.
Life is wondrous. And if you expose children to that, get them to understand that, all the ugliness of the world will not harm them. It will motivate them, bring about their compassion, and compel them to action.
That’s exactly our goal. In fact, the ugliness of the world may well harm them, but even this world is not the end, so we show them it can’t permanently overpower them.
Unfortunately, the public school system is designed to create an obedient work force. When people complain about the state of our educational system, I wonder if they have ever stopped to think that it is extremely well designed for its purpose. If you are a ruler, an educated/aware populace can be a bad thing.
Exactly. That’s part of the reason we educate our kids at home—we want them to be highly aware of the forces at work that would dumb them down and make them part of “mass Man.”
The best book on this subject is The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto. Fantastic work.
posted by Chris Ryland
on January 29, 2006 #
I should add Gatto’s book link: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm .
posted by Chris Ryland
on January 29, 2006 #
This isn’t a “worldview”, it’s a belief; one unsupported by the evidence.
Sorry, Aaron, but you’re falling prey to a modern myth itself, that homosexuality is neutral. It’s not, and those who counsel the men (mostly) who are caught up in a cycle of promiscuity and remorse can tell you volumes. Until just 25 years ago homosexuality was still listed as a disorder by the APA, but political correctness won the day.
An excellent book on this subject, if you can read it with an open mind, is Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, http://satinover.com/hatpot.htm . And, no, it’s not a conservative rant about homosexuality. It’s a very nuanced statement from a psychologist who’s had years of working with homosexuals. One comes away from reading it with a huge sense of compassion and even admiration for those who actually struggle with this particular disorder.
posted by Chris Ryland
on January 29, 2006 #
That’s absolutely absurd — none of my gay friends are “caught up in a cycle of promiscuity and remorse”; they’re indistinguishable from my other friends except for the fact that they have sex with others of the same gender. Now whether their desires are innate or not, there’s absolutely no basis to say they’re wrong. The only people who “struggle” are those who have to suffer the torture of authority figures telling them that they have an affliction.
posted by Aaron Swartz
on January 29, 2006 #
It seems that the ones who have the most problems with agreeing, that childhood is not a happy place to be, are adults. As if they wish that somewhere in this crazy world, they do not understand, there is a place or time that is understandable. But understandable also seems to be seen as innocent.
Children are not innocent, there minds are made to copy what they see and practice that behavior. So teaching and showing ignorance, creates ignorance. And therefor you also can not hide your feelings, your ideas, your expectations from your children, they will see them in your behavior towards each other and others.
The reason parents want to manipulate their children, is not to give their children a happy childhood, but to keep their own happy image of their childhood intact. And that in a world in which we know, that our memory is most of all a system that creates memories by taking certain moments in time and fabricating the story between those point.
To answer Mike Sierra and point out something Sean Abraham said:
sheltering is keeping someone away from experience and assumes that the other will not encounter that experience later on in life. Standing next to someone while he has his experience and let him benefit from your experience, by talking with him, that is what parenting is about.
And the educational system was created to create obidience in large groups of humans, even the monestry school, in which it all started and that in a large part is the example after which the current school system is made, had that goal. Creating obidient workers. It may not have been a consious choice, but that is how it works.
But in the end it seems, that what this really is about, is our willingness to learn to question ourselves and our believes.
posted by Norman Dragt
on January 30, 2006 #
Norman says: sheltering is keeping someone away from experience and assumes that the other will not encounter that experience later on in life. Also: Children are not innocent, there [sic] minds are made to copy what they see and practice that behavior. So teaching and showing ignorance, creates ignorance.
The word “ignorance” strikes me as odd in this context; I find it more useful to substitute the word “imagination.” To shelter kids is not to keep them away from adult experiences as a kind of long-term strategy, but rather to cultivate this sense of imagination that is so often in short supply once you reach adulthood. Any parent who believes or even wishes their kids won’t encounter these adult experiences later in life is simply a fool. But the converse would be unfortunate: to foist a particular view of “reality” on a developing child may suppress their ability to imagine otherwise.
In concrete terms, I’m not expending a great deal of energy shielding my five-year-old from the fact her uncle is gone, but neither am I about to tell her that no, she won’t be seeing him one day in heaven. Can’t imagine what possible good that would do. Likewise, she’s aware my MP3 player was stolen out of the car in my driveway, and it’s a damn shame how it’s affecting her view of the world: that bad people might simply invade her space and take things away from her without being punished for it. She’s also aware there are soldiers, but so far I’ve only been able to explain war in terms of boys who fight in the playground.
So Sean’s earlier statement that the earlier they understand the world, the more time they have to process it makes little sense in this regard. First, it assumes a fixed state in which they “understand the world” — I still don’t. Second, some information is age-inappropriate; it either warps your view of the world or else cannot be processed at all. When told, for example, that her mommy was sad because Uncle Bryce was gone, my daughter looked puzzled for a moment and said: “well, I have another uncle.” (Don’t mistake this for an inspirational statement; she simply can’t understand yet what it means for anyone to be gone forever.) And to see how easy it is to warp a child’s world-view, note that my daughter is now terrified of flushing the toilet after it backed up and overflowed once — my bad. ;-)
I haven’t read Postman, BTW, but I agree that the notion of a sheltered childhood is a fairly recent creation. I’d be more inclined to peg the shift to the industrial revolution, which generated sufficient prosperity to make institutions like child labor unthinkable. From that point of view, modern childhood is more a luxury than an artifact, one I wouldn’t be quick to jettison. As a function of prosperity rather than the relative importance of the written word, I doubt we’re reverting to a “pre-literate” state in which the distinction between adulthood and childhood is diminished. Perhaps instead increased prosperity may be encouraging childlike behavior among adults, with both the bad and good connotations that suggests. Not sure if I believe that’s the case, but I throw it out as an alternate scenario.
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 30, 2006 #
Forgot to mention: it’s one thing to assert that public education was created for the particular purpose of creating obedient workers, and another to provide evidence that is its continuing mission rather than its sub-optimal outcome. I’m sure all the parents and teachers involved would regard that goal as abhorrent. It strikes me as rather dull and obedient to hold onto that view and so quickly dismiss alternate explanations.
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 30, 2006 #
I do not worry about the imagination of children or adults.
The disapperance of imagination is not due to showing a world in its true form, but imposing a world view onto someone without the right of questioning that world view. And that is exactly what most teachers and parents do.
If telling your child that uncle Bryce is dead is a problem to you, and you see her answer “but you have another uncle” or “I have two uncles you can have one of mine” as not understanding what you are going through, then you do not see what see is trying. In her small way she is trying to use her imagination to understand what you feel. And as she thinks she understands, she imagines a solution that works for her and tries her solution out on you. If this solution does not work, she may try another, but also she may be stumped for another solution.
So in the end your problem with telling you child about death and stealing, might have more to do with your own feelings towards those situations then hers. Telling her would force you to look at your own emotions and would you be willing to do so, to be able to tell your child. (With this I do not mean to say, that you are not doing so, but reading your reactions, is giving that impression to me.)
And you are absolutely right, that teachers and parents have different goals for the eductional system, in comparison to what it creates. But Kant once said: What can be seen as good behavior, is not determined by someones intentions, but how his behavior creates what is good for others and if others experience that behavior as good.
posted by Norman Dragt
on January 31, 2006 #
I’m probably not expressing myself adequately. I understand my daughter’s trying to make us feel better, but what’s striking is how superficially she’s able to handle such a weighty subject, even while she’s nominally aware everyone dies. For her, the idea of an afterlife is comforting (grandma’s cat is there!), and my unwillingness to present my own more difficult belief to the contrary can be seen as a form of “sheltering,” one I think is appropriate.
Likewise, it’s not that I’m projecting a fear of thieves onto her. For me it’s just a loss of a few hundred bucks, and a minor annoyance. But it’s different for her, a completely unfamiliar risk to grapple with. Previously she didn’t worry about strangers approaching the house to take away her prized possessions while she’s asleep, and now she does. Not a major problem, mind you; we can keep reassuring her at bedtime that she has nothing to be afraid of, but it’s one of the things that discourages a shy girl from coming out of her shell. So I believe my preference to “shelter” her as best as I can from such concerns at this stage, minimizing and ignoring them where possible, is wholly appropriate.
As for what suppresses imagination, I disagree much imposition from parents/teachers is required. The process of becoming an adult requires developing a more focused kind of reasoning: more methodical, less magical, for want of a better word. A good deal of what makes people extraordinarily creative later in life is their ability to retain this more childlike way of thinking, but that doesn’t mean we retain it by default. My instinct as a parent is to let it flourish wherever possible, arguably another form of sheltering against this thing called “reality.”
And I understand what Kant says — that one’s good intentions may not bear fruit — but that’s besides the point. Sean’s statement that the public education system is “designed to create an obedient work force” [emphasis mine] suggests that someone is exerting control over the institution to produce that outcome for their benefit. Who is this?
posted by Mike Sierra
on January 31, 2006 #
I must admit it is rather difficult to know how you might shelter and at the same time let go.
And of course are childrens ideas less complex and more riddled with the influence of emotions, than those of grown ups, their ability to see relations is still developing. The simple reason for that is that their emotions develop before their cognitive abilities. This also means that a parent needs his experience with his own emotions and his cognition to understand what a child says and goes through. But it also means being honest about your own feelings. If you understand that your daughter is afraid, why do you not show her that you can be afraid, but also can conquer your fear. To me fear is a warning system to be careful, to start thinking, to analyse the situation. You might want to walk around the house with your daughter and look at every point she sees and feels something about and listen to what she has to say about it. Maybe her words are not eloquent, but if you give her a chance to speak her mind and be heard, you might be surprised by her insights. And you might even be more surprised by the fact that doing so she conquers her fears and becomes less shy.
Good luck.
You are absolutely right that nobody working in or working at the educational system is thinking about how to create an obidient work force. Everybody has his sights directed at giving every participant the best possible opportunity to achieve his best. But what I meant with intentions good or bad is that they do not count if the system creates something completely different then what it intended. So you are right, that what we get in the educational system is not the activity of someone exerting control. What we get in the educational system is because most participants have the best intentions, but are not willing to admit, that intentions are not enough to achieve a system that gives its best. We need to start to admit, that the system is made by humans for humans and that they influence each other. Sometimes their influence is positive, more often it is neutral, and sometimes it is negative. But the negative ones get talked about and create a negative press. Which creates a force in the system to cover up, not to own up.
posted by Norman Dragt
on February 1, 2006 #
But the converse would be unfortunate: to foist a particular view of “reality” on a developing child may suppress their ability to imagine otherwise.
I like what you’ve said here because it opened a new perspective to me. However, I feel that any type of experience encourages, rather than suppresses, ones ability to imagine. Our imaginations draw directly from our life experience, thus I am more inclined to believe that more experience equals greater imagination.
Likewise, she’s aware my MP3 player was stolen out of the car in my driveway, and it’s a damn shame how it’s affecting her view of the world: that bad people might simply invade her space and take things away from her without being punished for it.
One could argue here that the person who stole our MP3 player isn’t bad, but rather a victim of the emphasis of materialism and disparity of wealth in our world. I do not see that person who stole your MP3 player as being bad. I see them as not knowing any better, not realizing that their desire for that thing, that which they cannot afford but are willing to steal, is conditioned into them. By stopping on the person who stole your MP3 player, you’re stopping too soon. We must look at what caused that person to steal, media, culture, exploitation. The real crooks of this nation and our world steal more than we could dream, sit in official offices, and do a good enough job at hiding it. Explaining that to a five year-old may not be too easy, but how about… “It’s okay sweetie, apparently they needed it more than we do. We’re lucky in that we can even afford one.”
For her, the idea of an afterlife is comforting (grandma’s cat is there!), and my unwillingness to present my own more difficult belief to the contrary can be seen as a form of “sheltering,” one I think is appropriate.
I find the belief in an afterlife as a hinderance more than a benefit, and thus not an appropriate idea to propagate at any age. From personal experience, shedding away my belief in an afterlife empowered me to make the best of my life here. I view this belief in an afterlife as a crutch. “Things are bad now, but the afterlife will be so much better.” To me, this is extremely dangerous. It translates into laziness, less of a willingness to try and make this world a better place, and a less concerned attitude about destroying this planet. It’s much easier to just give up and bank on going to heaven. However, if people realized that this is it, this is all folks, perhaps people would be a little more motivated and passionate about making this a better world. However, looking into the eyes of a five year-old, certainly I would feel different.
we can keep reassuring her at bedtime that she has nothing to be afraid of, but it’s one of the things that discourages a shy girl from coming out of her shell. So I believe my preference to “shelter” her as best as I can from such concerns at this stage, minimizing and ignoring them where possible, is wholly appropriate.
The issue is so complex. Teaching her not to be fearful is extremely important. I liked what Norman had to say about fear being a warning system to be careful, start thinking, and analyze the situation. You can reassure her that there is nothing to be afraid of, but she is still afraid. I think understanding why people act as they do is an effective way to abolish fear. Norman’s suggestions also seem like good ones. Yet, to communicate such things to someone so young may be near impossible.
Mike, you have much more experience to draw on than I do myself, you have a child. I do not know what is better, I suppose it depends on your goals for your children. At this point in my life, were I to have children, my goal would be for them to be empowered, aware, and motivated to live their lives, experience as much as they can, and create positive change in this world. And by all of that, I am essentially describing the person I would like to be.
In response to my comment about our educational system being designed to produce an obedient work force, I would have to spend some time gathering sources and materials, however Aaron makes mention in this post about standardized testing and how it’s essentially gauges how well students memorize pointless facts. Yet, I feel that it’s evidence enough to simply look around and you will see an obedient work force. A population that can largely not think for themselves, nor care to. If our education system was truly designed to produce the best, brightest, most aware, and educated population, I think you would see more mentoring, more experienced based learning, less standardized testing. In fact, our entire culture and society would be completely different. There would be less of a class system, less homeless, more compassion, more empathy, less focus on materialism and consumption, less competition and more cooperation. I could go on, but I am tired right now.
This is a great discussion by the way, thank you Aaron, Mike, Chris, Norman, and the rest of you for your thoughts. Hopefully it will continue!
posted by Sean Abrahams
on February 1, 2006 #
It is nice to know Sean, that my remark and those of others opened a new perspective. And I agree with you, that many experiences create creative thinking. However what I meant, was repeated pressure to follow the directions of others. It is comparable to what you say at the end of your reaction. If you want obedience, you repeatedly show people what you want of them and disallow them to have their own opinion or questions.
posted by Norman Dragt
on February 2, 2006 #
Sean: If you’re saying all kinds of experience can only be good, I have to disagree. Traumas I alluded to such as death and divorce easily lead to self-doubt, depression (the antithesis of imagination), and all kinds of pathological behavior. Even if we exclude these, it’s not simply a question of more or less experience. Take two kids, one of whom starts practicing sex at age n, and the other at n + 4. The latter does not have less experience with life, just a different set of experiences, the value of which should not be minimized. It’s useful here to consider why parents (now) oppose teen pregnancy. Parenthood is widely regarded as a positive experience, but not when it deprives teens of the remaining part of their childhood, a period allowing them to evaluate opportunities for the future that should not be squandered.
I think you’re overreacting to my shorthand term “bad people,” one I assure you I don’t use with my daughter. The point is from her eyes, it’s a meaningless distinction. She now has to get her head around the idea of people whose very goal is to hurt other people — inevitable, but a revelation that sure could have waited. And if someone takes away something of hers, I’m going to tell her “that’s wrong,” not the passive “It’s okay sweetie, apparently they needed it more than you do.” Can you see why the latter would be a cause for anxiety? (BTW: while iPods are readily fenceable and there have been no arrests, the cops strongly suspect a teenager from a few blocks away who is unlikely to be suffering from material deprivation. For what it’s worth…)
I’m also taken aback at your strongly negative reaction to the idea of an afterlife. I’m sorry if you had a difficult time shedding the belief, but I don’t see “this is all there is” and a future of being devoured by worms to be particularly motivating, either. Most major religions hold that good works in this life leads to a superior afterlife (or reincarnation for Hindus and Buddhists), so it appears to be a common motivating factor.
And I do agree the outcomes of public education are sub-optimal. My only point (perhaps a minor one) is one shouldn’t assume the embodiment of malevolent power interests the way Bible-thumpers do for Satan.
posted by Mike Sierra
on February 2, 2006 #
In the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
Let’s take a jaundiced view of the case, OK? On the one had, we have a set of officials who hage lied about the benefits of these programs in that past, whose interests are clearly served by making a case for “damage”, and who are now asking us to take their claims on faith. On the other hand, we have other unnamed individuals whose interests are not served by their claims, and who aren’t being served by their disclosures.
I’m willing to be open-minded zbout the possibility of damage—but given the number of lies we’ve gotten about that so far, I’m demanding real evidence. Negroponte has plenty of time to find a “damaged asset” and demonstrate the damage.
posted by Dave
on February 3, 2006 #
Mike Sierra: While I don’t believe that the poor quality of (public or private) education is due to a single Machiavellian entity, I do think that it’s partly due to the combined actions of various interest groups. I recently came across this tidbit on Boingboing, where Wil McCarthy wants us all to get excited over a new technology he’s exploring — “Quantum Wells”. So I thought, “hey, this sounds exciting, how can I contribute to it?” Guess what, I can’t; this stuff is being surrounded by a huge barrier of patents. Now you know where all the “pointless” facts to memorize come from: there’s a lot of knowledge out there that we can’t even use.
posted by bi
on February 5, 2006 #
bi: I totally agree it’s the “combined actions of various interest groups.” Even if we were relatively focused in our vision of what an education ought to be, articulating a goal and implementing it in an institutional setting are two different matters. At times I wish we were dealing with a Machiavelli, since at least he was a smart guy. Every week I get this criminally endless, picayune email blast from the local principal, titled “Thursday Announcements,” and I’ve been noticing that lately it’s been coming in on Wednesdays and Tuesdays. Based on what I’ve encountered so far, getting them to retitle it might require a meeting with input from other parents.
posted by Mike Sierra
on February 6, 2006 #
Aaron,
I feel like we read different books - perhaps you haven’t been really fair to Postman… In “The Disappearance of Childhood” Postman is very clear that he can’t make any claims that childhood going is, in any absolute sense, good or bad. But he admits that he has an emotional and nostalgic attachment to the concept of childhood.
The book is useful because it helps us understand where this whole idea of childhood innocence comes from. Just telling people that it wasn’t always this way is very helpful.
But the core argument is about the merger of the adult and child into continuous teen. Postman tries to avoid admitting he doesn’t like this change but he can’t help himself.
TV isn’t the real world. For example, most people have extraordinary ideas about childbirth which have no relationship to reality. 300,000 women give birth around the world every day. Most of them do it at home yet TV would have us believe that unless it happens lying in a bed at hospital the mother will drop dead.
Postman (in 1982 remember) points out in this book many useful trends such as how children watch post-threshold ‘adult’ TV and adults include children’s programmes in their list of all-time favourites.
The book, for me, is about opening debate on what society wants… more of this trend of becoming a teenager from 3 to 35 or something else?
So what do we want?
Jason
posted by Jason Kitcat
on February 7, 2006 #
Postman is very clear that he can’t make any claims that childhood going is, in any absolute sense, good or bad. But he admits that he has an emotional and nostalgic attachment to the concept of childhood.
Here’s Postman in the preface to the second edition:
of all the books I have written, this one has always been my favorite. … The book [] has a rather sad theme, made all the more unpalatable by the fact that it offers no strong solutions to the problem it raises—in fact, no solutions at all. If at least some trends toward the disappearance of childhood had been stayed or reversed since the book was written, I would have been delighted. (vii, of the second edition)
I certainly don’t recall Postman saying any such thing and the above quote (“favorite … book”, “sad”, “unpalatable”, “[in need of] solutions”, “delighted [to reverse]”) doesn’t sound like the kind of words you would use for something you have only a nostalgic attachment to.
TV isn’t the real world. For example, most people have extraordinary ideas about childbirth which have no relationship to reality. 300,000 women give birth around the world every day. Most of them do it at home yet TV would have us believe that unless it happens lying in a bed at hospital the mother will drop dead.
Actually, most US television shows take place in the US, where 99% of childbirths are at a hospital. †
The book, for me, is about opening debate on what society wants… more of this trend of becoming a teenager from 3 to 35 or something else?
If we’re going to have a debate, perhaps Postman should offer some arguments for his side, instead of simply assuming he’s obviously right.
posted by Aaron Swartz
on February 7, 2006 #
To find the disappearance of childhood “painful and embarrassing and, above all, sad” (pp xiii 2nd Ed) Is, in my view, a personal expression of regret but not an argument in any absolute moral or ethical framework that it’s disappearance is wrong. I think nostalgia is an eminently appropriate way to describe Postman’s writings - in the final chapter he talks of keeping a previous age with it’s “Monastery Effect” alive through careful parenting. Is that not nostalgic?
It’s true that unfortunately most US children are born in hospitals. Hence the relatively high US infant mortality rate and massive number of complications and caesarians. But in the UK much TV is made in the UK, in Holland it’s made in Holland etc. The lowest home birth rate in Holland was 1/3 back in the 80s it’s gone up ever since. Nevertheless birth is shown in hospital lying down. Lying down is the worst possible position to give birth in! I digress.
My point was that TV is not reflective of reality, not even news is. So there aren’t as many murders, terrorist plots, coincidences etc as we experience in life. TV is hyper-real, a recent study in the UK (whose reference I’m trying to track down) showed how characters in British dramas wouldn’t be able to afford the cars and homes they were portrayed to own.
I’m sure you know the jokes about how in Friends nobody ever works yet they live pretty well.
Perhaps Postman is at fault for believing his findings are obvious. But that’s a truly extraordinary and brave thing for him to do when the massive majority wouldn’t even be thinking along his lines…
As he writes in the introduction:
What isn’t so well understood is where childhood comes from in the first place and, still less, why it should be disappearing (…) As I understand what I have written, the main contribution of this book, such that it is, does not reside in the claim that childhood is disappearing but in a theory as to why such a thing should be happening. (pp xii-xiii, 2nd Ed)
The book is an excellent, accessible overview of the history of childhood. The second part was, for me, intellectually rigourous and held true to my own life experiences as a 27-year old man expecting my first baby in 5 weeks.
You wrote:
Not once does Postman ever explain why this should be considered a bad thing.
I disagree, again I think the introduction, for example, clearly lays out why Postman mourns the loss of childhood:
To have to stand and wait as the charm, malleability, innocence, and curiosity of children are degraded and then transmogrified into the less features of pseudo-adulthood is painful…
You may disagree whether it matters if children lose these characteristics. But to find it difficult to take Postman seriously because he doesn’t express his arguments is unfair. Despite your implications he never proposes a paternalistic society where politicians are infallible or any such like. He clearly identifies himself as a liberal and struggles with how the Right may have been more aware of the loss of childhood then his own political brothers.
Your entire piece misrepresents the book. In the new preface he doesn’t praise the children for agreeing with him. To call such a heartfelt work tongue-in-cheek is extraordinary.
posted by Jason Kitcat
on February 7, 2006 #
I don’t dispute that television (and perhaps especially the news) is unreal.
[…] I think the introduction, for example, clearly lays out why Postman mourns the loss of childhood:
To have to stand and wait as the charm, malleability, innocence, and curiosity of children are degraded and then transmogrified into the less features of pseudo-adulthood is painful…
Saying you find it painful is a far cry from explaining why it’s bad — why do you find it painful? (Psuedo-adults aren’t curious or charming? Innocence and malleability are good things?)
Your entire piece misrepresents the book. In the new preface he doesn’t praise the children for agreeing with him. To call such a heartfelt work tongue-in-cheek is extraordinary.
He quotes children calling him “weird”, “not very good”, and arguing against him. Then he says “their main lesson for me is that children themselves are a force in preserving childhood”. It clearly seemed to me he was praising the children for agreeing with him, even after I reread the passage a couple times.
I just went back and reread the passage again and I see what you mean, though. I guess he must have been referring to the fact that the children weren’t arguing that the disappearance of childhood was good, they were arguing that it wasn’t happening, which he presumably interpreted as support for the idea of childhood. I’ve corrected the piece.
posted by
on February 7, 2006 #
Aaron - I think all issues of import have been resolved. Thanks.
posted by Jason Kitcat
on February 7, 2006 #
As I read the last few posts about the different ideas the book has created with its few readers on this weblog, one thing comes to mind. Nobody questions the fact that a human from an era in which childhood was something that was created through laws that forbid child labor, tries to answer his own questions about the disappearance of childhood. This is the famous dilemma of the fish researching water. For humans this would be their culture. Childhood is a western development from the late nineteenth begin twentieth century. It came to be, because business owners needed more and more skilled workers to create the more and more complex goods they were producing and handle the complex machinery they were using. So childhood really is a social construct.
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However to think that children agree with your idea that childhood should not disappear, is to assume that those children have the same idea about childhood that you have. Most children of today will take the information on television, internet, family and school about childhood as there reference points to understand what is meant by childhood, where mister Postman probably is from an era where school and family where the only reference points.
So what might be happening is that childhood is not disappearing, but changing into a form, that is unrecognisable to someone as mr. Postman.
posted by Norman Dragt
on February 7, 2006 #
Jason, I understand this is a digression, but I was floored by your statement: It’s true that unfortunately most US children are born in hospitals. Hence the relatively high US infant mortality rate and massive number of complications and caesarians. High infant mortality compared to what, Sweden? Worldwide, the mortality rate is about 50 per 1,000 live births, while for the U.S. it’s 6.5. (This according to the CIA World Factbook.) So I don’t know what you mean by “massive number of complications.” And pretty much by definition, the only place you’d want to perform a C-section is in a hospital.
posted by Mike Sierra
on February 8, 2006 #
I’m still trying to figure out how television as it is practiced—while visiting my parents the last few days, I’ve seen three families tortured and killed on Law and Order alone—has anything to do with the real world.
posted by adamsj
on May 21, 2006 #
This is all fine and great about introducing kids to sex and everything, but I thought the huge spotlight was on how adults are becoming more and more simple?!
Never mind the children, I like it how we are demeaning culture to such 3rd grade level, that it literally brings our IQ down to watch half an hour of the View? Can I see someone in Congress about this? (lol)
posted by Nick Moore
on December 7, 2007 #
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Seems like warmed-over McLuhan, and like McLuhan, easy to poke holes in some of the less coherent premises. For one thing, the 21st century economy requires more educated students than ever before, so the importance of literacy shows no sign of declining. As if the kids were going back to work in the sweatshops or out in the fields!
Funny, by the way, how conservatives are supposed to want to turn back the clock on all sorts of things, and here’s one who’s so afraid of doing so!
posted by Mike Sierra on January 28, 2006 #
Postman is a McLuhan contemporary, I believe. Postman considers work training in school as part of the trend towards killing childhood. His literacy is stuff like the fine arts, rhetoric, etiquette, and prudish modesty, none of which seem particularly necessary for jobs “the 21st century economy”.
Postman is generally considered to be a man of the left (tho clearly of the Jerry Mander-style segment), not the right, and in the book he specifically attacks the so-called radicals for actually turning back the clock.
posted by Aaron Swartz on January 28, 2006 #
Postman is generally considered to be a man of the left. Wow. Based on how you describe his rhetoric, that’s pretty amusing.
posted by Mike Sierra on January 28, 2006 #
His problem is a simple one, and one that is nearly fundamental in our society. He assumes that childhood is defined by “innocence” (I don’t know if he specifically uses that term, but I always hear it in discussions like this), which, to much of adult society, is a euphemism for ignorance.
With this positive-sounding euphemism in place, we proceed to assume that it is a positive property that must be preserved at all costs, until someone is not a child anymore, at which point they are allowed to stop being innocent for some reason. It’s all very arbitrary, but that’s where society gets the obsession with “protecting” children from dirty words (whose dirtiness itself is equally arbitrary), from sex, etc. That’s why society flipped out when Janet Jackson’s right nipple was shown on TV for a half a second or something. “Think of the children! How dare you allow the innocent children, um,… during an age between toddlerhood and adolescence, to see a nipple!” It’s all very bizarre.
Also that’s why parents tell pointless lies to their children — Santa Claus, for example. “Oh, look, I lied to little Jimmy, and he believes me! How cute! How innocent!” Of course, a lot of that is also a means of manipulating children by abusing their trust and impressionability. But parents do try to defend it as an “innocent” fantasy, and thus something unquestionably positive for children.
… I hate that word. That concept. If that’s really what childhood represents to society, then I’ve no objections to furthering the “disappearance of childhood.”
posted by Adam on January 28, 2006 #
Hey, don’t diss Santa Claus. He’s my friend.
posted by on January 28, 2006 #
No, but really, a “pointless lie”? Isn’t that a bit much? Parents push the myth of Santa Claus simply because they want to confirm their kids’ gullibility? No, kids crave all sorts of fantasies as a normal part of their development.
posted by Mike Sierra on January 28, 2006 #
It all depends on your worldview, Aaron.
In mine, homosexuality is a failure of affective development, though of course I harbor no ill will towards such folks, being highly aware of all my own weaknesses in other areas of life.
And innocence is a desirable state for children. “Dirtiness” is not arbitrary, though clearly there are gray areas.
Why should an 8-year-old have to know in gory detail about all the ugly things that adults do in their worst moments? Murder, rapine, wars, etc.?
That’s Postman’s point: Children will grow up soon enough to be adults, and, once they’re at or close to adulthood, will be exposed to the ugliness of parts of human life, and will have to deal with it. But he (and I) claim that, to grow up with a healthy sense that the world is not a terribly place, children need an emotional “space” that’s certainly not free of all evil (not possible), but at least not full of it, either.
Our kids have grown up without television or radio, and now that some of them are adults (our eldest is 23, youngest 5), I think they agree with our decision and they’re a lot happier folks this way.
Besides, who has time for television, even assuming it was a desirable way to spend time (which is certainly is not—at best it’s a banal waste of time)? Our kids have always been educated at home, and have way too much to do, between lessons, work, and (lots of) play. Kids need leisure to grow up, time for contemplation and reflection.
I can heartily recommend “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” in which Postman argues convincingly that television, even at its very best and most serious, can never be more than titillation and entertainment.
(Jerry Mander makes the same arguments, but I think a little more speculatively.)
posted by Chris Ryland on January 28, 2006 #
This isn’t a “worldview”, it’s a belief; one unsupported by the evidence.
Nobody’s proposing a system of mandatory education of 8 year olds in violence. Nobody’s insisting we raise children in an emotional space full of evil. Nobody’s saying we should encourage them to watch television. But what’s wrong with letting them say certain words or allowing them to wear certain clothes? What’s wrong with letting them know adults have sex and Santa Claus doesn’t exist? The burden of proof is on those who would restrain children and they present no arguments.
posted by Aaron Swartz on January 28, 2006 #
“Why should an 8-year-old have to know in gory detail about all the ugly things that adults do in their worst moments? Murder, rapine, wars, etc.?”
Maybe so they can understand history? They’re in what, 4th grade by then? It’s attitudes like the above that have taken all of the value out of public education in this country. The idea that education must be watered down and censored to preserve innocence and so as not to offend anyone, right up until a student enters college, is a gross disservice to America’s youth and to their social development.
“Nobody’s proposing a system of mandatory education of 8 year olds in violence. Nobody’s insisting we raise children in an emotional space full of evil.”
Actually, that sounds like the public school I attended. Lots of murders and rapes, even more suicide, very little educational content, and a huge emphasis on sports. It would be hard to design a better system for oppressing people without the majority of them figuring out they’re being deliberately oppressed.
posted by Andrew on January 28, 2006 #
Aaron asks if I have any evidence for my statement that kids naturally engage in fantasy. No, not really, but it seems obvious to me as a parent of two (eldest in kindergarten). Young kids seem to be able to make a game out of anything. I’m not a psychologist and don’t fully understand why playing games is so important to development, but it clearly is. Fantasies seem to be a similar way of playing with concepts, and I get the impression it’s a way of making sense of all the jumbled information kids take in. (Only when you get older do you start to learn things methodically and sequentially.) It may be related to dreams: how one of their purposes may be to help process each day’s data, and perhaps spin stories about what might happen the next day (according to one theory I’m probably stating clumsily). In more concrete terms, it makes sense on some level to believe in a benevolent Santa Claus who rewards well-behaved kids with presents. The alternative concept — that self-control is its own reward — is a far more difficult concept for young kids. Same thing with the tooth fairy: losing teeth as a valuable rite of passage to adulthood.
posted by Mike Sierra on January 28, 2006 #
In mine, homosexuality is a failure of affective development, though of course I harbor no ill will towards such folks, being highly aware of all my own weaknesses in other areas of life.
Interesting.
And innocence is a desirable state for children. “Dirtiness” is not arbitrary, though clearly there are gray areas.
I think perhaps you mean naiveness, not innocence.
Why should an 8-year-old have to know in gory detail about all the ugly things that adults do in their worst moments? Murder, rapine, wars, etc.?
That’s Postman’s point: Children will grow up soon enough to be adults, and, once they’re at or close to adulthood, will be exposed to the ugliness of parts of human life, and will have to deal with it.
Even more reason to prepare children for what is out there. One problem I have with sheltering children from the realities of the world is that people tend to accept the way the world is instead of changing it. If you think the world is such a horrible place, do something to change that. Sheltering your children from it does no good. You could possibly argue that sheltering them could result in emotionally healthier adults, but I would counter that if you explain things well enough to an unsheltered child, love them, etc, it would be a non-issue.
Life is experience. I am Pro-Experience. I want to expose my children to life and be there to help explain it. The earlier they understand the world, the more time they have to process it and hopefully be motivated to create beneficial change. This does not mean I advocate sitting a three year old down in front of a television and playing pornography and violence. But I will not unnecessarily shelter them from life, thought, experience.
I agree with the sentiments of Mander and television, for the most part, turn it off. Teach them not to be fearful, empower them, and help them understand the world. Create a world where this argument doesn’t exist, where the thought of sheltering children is foreign (unfortunately this can mean many different things to many different people).
But he (and I) claim that, to grow up with a healthy sense that the world is not a terribly place, children need an emotional “space” that’s certainly not free of all evil (not possible), but at least not full of it, either.
Is it not possible to expose children to all of life, emphasizing that among all of this evil and hatred there is vastly more beauty, wonder, love, “amazingness” (couldn’t think of proper word). We focus so much on the negative, perhaps in the hope that we will do something to change it. Life is wondrous. And if you expose children to that, get them to understand that, all the ugliness of the world will not harm them. It will motivate them, bring about their compassion, and compel them to action.
Actually, that sounds like the public school I attended. Lots of murders and rapes, even more suicide, very little educational content, and a huge emphasis on sports. It would be hard to design a better system for oppressing people without the majority of them figuring out they’re being deliberately oppressed.
Unfortunately, the public school system is designed to create an obedient work force. When people complain about the state of our educational system, I wonder if they have ever stopped to think that it is extremely well designed for its purpose. If you are a ruler, an educated/aware populace can be a bad thing.
posted by Sean Abrahams on January 28, 2006 #
I find a couple of Sean’s assumptions suspect: first, that some nefarious power is responsible for public schools’ shortcomings, as opposed to, say, institutional inertia. In my experience, managers don’t prize their dull, obedient employees. And many powerful politicians have worked hard to upset the educational establishment. This focus on power relationships seems to be a recurring theme here, as when Adam suggested parents tell their kids about Santa Claus in order to prove they can lie to them, as if to establish their dominance. In both cases it strikes me as a very odd way to look at it.
Second, the idea that exposing kids to all sorts of realities earlier produces better results than sheltering them. One comment in particular jumped out at me: One problem I have with sheltering children from the realities of the world is that people tend to accept the way the world is instead of changing it. The ugly “realities of the world” include a lot of stuff you have no control over. My brother-in-law, my daughter’s uncle, died horribly of cancer last year, and her day-care provider the year before that, so I have recent experience on this front. Indeed, the fact that we have so little control over such large matters can be particularly distressing to kids who are developing the confidence to master their environment. You have far, far less influence on the world at large than on your child.
posted by Mike Sierra on January 29, 2006 #
Maybe so they can understand history? They’re in what, 4th grade by then? It’s attitudes like the above that have taken all of the value out of public education in this country. The idea that education must be watered down and censored to preserve innocence and so as not to offend anyone, right up until a student enters college, is a gross disservice to America’s youth and to their social development.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. You can certainly tell a 4th grader about wars, etc., at some level of abstraction, and that’s inevitable, of course. But you don’t have to show them pictures of the latest Tsutsi massacres (to pick one modern war at random) to get the point across.
And you don’t keep them at the same level of abstraction all the way up until they enter college. On the contrary, our goal as home educators is to get them “up to speed” on all this nonsense (and a lot of other sensical stuff), though with a healthy world-view that says evil is not the last word.
Life is wondrous. And if you expose children to that, get them to understand that, all the ugliness of the world will not harm them. It will motivate them, bring about their compassion, and compel them to action.
That’s exactly our goal. In fact, the ugliness of the world may well harm them, but even this world is not the end, so we show them it can’t permanently overpower them.
Unfortunately, the public school system is designed to create an obedient work force. When people complain about the state of our educational system, I wonder if they have ever stopped to think that it is extremely well designed for its purpose. If you are a ruler, an educated/aware populace can be a bad thing.
Exactly. That’s part of the reason we educate our kids at home—we want them to be highly aware of the forces at work that would dumb them down and make them part of “mass Man.”
The best book on this subject is The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto. Fantastic work.
posted by Chris Ryland on January 29, 2006 #
I should add Gatto’s book link: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm .
posted by Chris Ryland on January 29, 2006 #
This isn’t a “worldview”, it’s a belief; one unsupported by the evidence.
Sorry, Aaron, but you’re falling prey to a modern myth itself, that homosexuality is neutral. It’s not, and those who counsel the men (mostly) who are caught up in a cycle of promiscuity and remorse can tell you volumes. Until just 25 years ago homosexuality was still listed as a disorder by the APA, but political correctness won the day.
An excellent book on this subject, if you can read it with an open mind, is Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, http://satinover.com/hatpot.htm . And, no, it’s not a conservative rant about homosexuality. It’s a very nuanced statement from a psychologist who’s had years of working with homosexuals. One comes away from reading it with a huge sense of compassion and even admiration for those who actually struggle with this particular disorder.
posted by Chris Ryland on January 29, 2006 #
That’s absolutely absurd — none of my gay friends are “caught up in a cycle of promiscuity and remorse”; they’re indistinguishable from my other friends except for the fact that they have sex with others of the same gender. Now whether their desires are innate or not, there’s absolutely no basis to say they’re wrong. The only people who “struggle” are those who have to suffer the torture of authority figures telling them that they have an affliction.
posted by Aaron Swartz on January 29, 2006 #
It seems that the ones who have the most problems with agreeing, that childhood is not a happy place to be, are adults. As if they wish that somewhere in this crazy world, they do not understand, there is a place or time that is understandable. But understandable also seems to be seen as innocent. Children are not innocent, there minds are made to copy what they see and practice that behavior. So teaching and showing ignorance, creates ignorance. And therefor you also can not hide your feelings, your ideas, your expectations from your children, they will see them in your behavior towards each other and others. The reason parents want to manipulate their children, is not to give their children a happy childhood, but to keep their own happy image of their childhood intact. And that in a world in which we know, that our memory is most of all a system that creates memories by taking certain moments in time and fabricating the story between those point.
To answer Mike Sierra and point out something Sean Abraham said: sheltering is keeping someone away from experience and assumes that the other will not encounter that experience later on in life. Standing next to someone while he has his experience and let him benefit from your experience, by talking with him, that is what parenting is about.
And the educational system was created to create obidience in large groups of humans, even the monestry school, in which it all started and that in a large part is the example after which the current school system is made, had that goal. Creating obidient workers. It may not have been a consious choice, but that is how it works.
But in the end it seems, that what this really is about, is our willingness to learn to question ourselves and our believes.
posted by Norman Dragt on January 30, 2006 #
Norman says: sheltering is keeping someone away from experience and assumes that the other will not encounter that experience later on in life. Also: Children are not innocent, there [sic] minds are made to copy what they see and practice that behavior. So teaching and showing ignorance, creates ignorance.
The word “ignorance” strikes me as odd in this context; I find it more useful to substitute the word “imagination.” To shelter kids is not to keep them away from adult experiences as a kind of long-term strategy, but rather to cultivate this sense of imagination that is so often in short supply once you reach adulthood. Any parent who believes or even wishes their kids won’t encounter these adult experiences later in life is simply a fool. But the converse would be unfortunate: to foist a particular view of “reality” on a developing child may suppress their ability to imagine otherwise.
In concrete terms, I’m not expending a great deal of energy shielding my five-year-old from the fact her uncle is gone, but neither am I about to tell her that no, she won’t be seeing him one day in heaven. Can’t imagine what possible good that would do. Likewise, she’s aware my MP3 player was stolen out of the car in my driveway, and it’s a damn shame how it’s affecting her view of the world: that bad people might simply invade her space and take things away from her without being punished for it. She’s also aware there are soldiers, but so far I’ve only been able to explain war in terms of boys who fight in the playground.
So Sean’s earlier statement that the earlier they understand the world, the more time they have to process it makes little sense in this regard. First, it assumes a fixed state in which they “understand the world” — I still don’t. Second, some information is age-inappropriate; it either warps your view of the world or else cannot be processed at all. When told, for example, that her mommy was sad because Uncle Bryce was gone, my daughter looked puzzled for a moment and said: “well, I have another uncle.” (Don’t mistake this for an inspirational statement; she simply can’t understand yet what it means for anyone to be gone forever.) And to see how easy it is to warp a child’s world-view, note that my daughter is now terrified of flushing the toilet after it backed up and overflowed once — my bad. ;-)
I haven’t read Postman, BTW, but I agree that the notion of a sheltered childhood is a fairly recent creation. I’d be more inclined to peg the shift to the industrial revolution, which generated sufficient prosperity to make institutions like child labor unthinkable. From that point of view, modern childhood is more a luxury than an artifact, one I wouldn’t be quick to jettison. As a function of prosperity rather than the relative importance of the written word, I doubt we’re reverting to a “pre-literate” state in which the distinction between adulthood and childhood is diminished. Perhaps instead increased prosperity may be encouraging childlike behavior among adults, with both the bad and good connotations that suggests. Not sure if I believe that’s the case, but I throw it out as an alternate scenario.
posted by Mike Sierra on January 30, 2006 #
Forgot to mention: it’s one thing to assert that public education was created for the particular purpose of creating obedient workers, and another to provide evidence that is its continuing mission rather than its sub-optimal outcome. I’m sure all the parents and teachers involved would regard that goal as abhorrent. It strikes me as rather dull and obedient to hold onto that view and so quickly dismiss alternate explanations.
posted by Mike Sierra on January 30, 2006 #
I do not worry about the imagination of children or adults.
The disapperance of imagination is not due to showing a world in its true form, but imposing a world view onto someone without the right of questioning that world view. And that is exactly what most teachers and parents do.
If telling your child that uncle Bryce is dead is a problem to you, and you see her answer “but you have another uncle” or “I have two uncles you can have one of mine” as not understanding what you are going through, then you do not see what see is trying. In her small way she is trying to use her imagination to understand what you feel. And as she thinks she understands, she imagines a solution that works for her and tries her solution out on you. If this solution does not work, she may try another, but also she may be stumped for another solution.
So in the end your problem with telling you child about death and stealing, might have more to do with your own feelings towards those situations then hers. Telling her would force you to look at your own emotions and would you be willing to do so, to be able to tell your child. (With this I do not mean to say, that you are not doing so, but reading your reactions, is giving that impression to me.)
And you are absolutely right, that teachers and parents have different goals for the eductional system, in comparison to what it creates. But Kant once said: What can be seen as good behavior, is not determined by someones intentions, but how his behavior creates what is good for others and if others experience that behavior as good.
posted by Norman Dragt on January 31, 2006 #
I’m probably not expressing myself adequately. I understand my daughter’s trying to make us feel better, but what’s striking is how superficially she’s able to handle such a weighty subject, even while she’s nominally aware everyone dies. For her, the idea of an afterlife is comforting (grandma’s cat is there!), and my unwillingness to present my own more difficult belief to the contrary can be seen as a form of “sheltering,” one I think is appropriate.
Likewise, it’s not that I’m projecting a fear of thieves onto her. For me it’s just a loss of a few hundred bucks, and a minor annoyance. But it’s different for her, a completely unfamiliar risk to grapple with. Previously she didn’t worry about strangers approaching the house to take away her prized possessions while she’s asleep, and now she does. Not a major problem, mind you; we can keep reassuring her at bedtime that she has nothing to be afraid of, but it’s one of the things that discourages a shy girl from coming out of her shell. So I believe my preference to “shelter” her as best as I can from such concerns at this stage, minimizing and ignoring them where possible, is wholly appropriate.
As for what suppresses imagination, I disagree much imposition from parents/teachers is required. The process of becoming an adult requires developing a more focused kind of reasoning: more methodical, less magical, for want of a better word. A good deal of what makes people extraordinarily creative later in life is their ability to retain this more childlike way of thinking, but that doesn’t mean we retain it by default. My instinct as a parent is to let it flourish wherever possible, arguably another form of sheltering against this thing called “reality.”
And I understand what Kant says — that one’s good intentions may not bear fruit — but that’s besides the point. Sean’s statement that the public education system is “designed to create an obedient work force” [emphasis mine] suggests that someone is exerting control over the institution to produce that outcome for their benefit. Who is this?
posted by Mike Sierra on January 31, 2006 #
I must admit it is rather difficult to know how you might shelter and at the same time let go.
And of course are childrens ideas less complex and more riddled with the influence of emotions, than those of grown ups, their ability to see relations is still developing. The simple reason for that is that their emotions develop before their cognitive abilities. This also means that a parent needs his experience with his own emotions and his cognition to understand what a child says and goes through. But it also means being honest about your own feelings. If you understand that your daughter is afraid, why do you not show her that you can be afraid, but also can conquer your fear. To me fear is a warning system to be careful, to start thinking, to analyse the situation. You might want to walk around the house with your daughter and look at every point she sees and feels something about and listen to what she has to say about it. Maybe her words are not eloquent, but if you give her a chance to speak her mind and be heard, you might be surprised by her insights. And you might even be more surprised by the fact that doing so she conquers her fears and becomes less shy.
Good luck.
You are absolutely right that nobody working in or working at the educational system is thinking about how to create an obidient work force. Everybody has his sights directed at giving every participant the best possible opportunity to achieve his best. But what I meant with intentions good or bad is that they do not count if the system creates something completely different then what it intended. So you are right, that what we get in the educational system is not the activity of someone exerting control. What we get in the educational system is because most participants have the best intentions, but are not willing to admit, that intentions are not enough to achieve a system that gives its best. We need to start to admit, that the system is made by humans for humans and that they influence each other. Sometimes their influence is positive, more often it is neutral, and sometimes it is negative. But the negative ones get talked about and create a negative press. Which creates a force in the system to cover up, not to own up.
posted by Norman Dragt on February 1, 2006 #
But the converse would be unfortunate: to foist a particular view of “reality” on a developing child may suppress their ability to imagine otherwise.
I like what you’ve said here because it opened a new perspective to me. However, I feel that any type of experience encourages, rather than suppresses, ones ability to imagine. Our imaginations draw directly from our life experience, thus I am more inclined to believe that more experience equals greater imagination.
Likewise, she’s aware my MP3 player was stolen out of the car in my driveway, and it’s a damn shame how it’s affecting her view of the world: that bad people might simply invade her space and take things away from her without being punished for it.
One could argue here that the person who stole our MP3 player isn’t bad, but rather a victim of the emphasis of materialism and disparity of wealth in our world. I do not see that person who stole your MP3 player as being bad. I see them as not knowing any better, not realizing that their desire for that thing, that which they cannot afford but are willing to steal, is conditioned into them. By stopping on the person who stole your MP3 player, you’re stopping too soon. We must look at what caused that person to steal, media, culture, exploitation. The real crooks of this nation and our world steal more than we could dream, sit in official offices, and do a good enough job at hiding it. Explaining that to a five year-old may not be too easy, but how about… “It’s okay sweetie, apparently they needed it more than we do. We’re lucky in that we can even afford one.”
For her, the idea of an afterlife is comforting (grandma’s cat is there!), and my unwillingness to present my own more difficult belief to the contrary can be seen as a form of “sheltering,” one I think is appropriate.
I find the belief in an afterlife as a hinderance more than a benefit, and thus not an appropriate idea to propagate at any age. From personal experience, shedding away my belief in an afterlife empowered me to make the best of my life here. I view this belief in an afterlife as a crutch. “Things are bad now, but the afterlife will be so much better.” To me, this is extremely dangerous. It translates into laziness, less of a willingness to try and make this world a better place, and a less concerned attitude about destroying this planet. It’s much easier to just give up and bank on going to heaven. However, if people realized that this is it, this is all folks, perhaps people would be a little more motivated and passionate about making this a better world. However, looking into the eyes of a five year-old, certainly I would feel different.
we can keep reassuring her at bedtime that she has nothing to be afraid of, but it’s one of the things that discourages a shy girl from coming out of her shell. So I believe my preference to “shelter” her as best as I can from such concerns at this stage, minimizing and ignoring them where possible, is wholly appropriate.
The issue is so complex. Teaching her not to be fearful is extremely important. I liked what Norman had to say about fear being a warning system to be careful, start thinking, and analyze the situation. You can reassure her that there is nothing to be afraid of, but she is still afraid. I think understanding why people act as they do is an effective way to abolish fear. Norman’s suggestions also seem like good ones. Yet, to communicate such things to someone so young may be near impossible.
Mike, you have much more experience to draw on than I do myself, you have a child. I do not know what is better, I suppose it depends on your goals for your children. At this point in my life, were I to have children, my goal would be for them to be empowered, aware, and motivated to live their lives, experience as much as they can, and create positive change in this world. And by all of that, I am essentially describing the person I would like to be.
In response to my comment about our educational system being designed to produce an obedient work force, I would have to spend some time gathering sources and materials, however Aaron makes mention in this post about standardized testing and how it’s essentially gauges how well students memorize pointless facts. Yet, I feel that it’s evidence enough to simply look around and you will see an obedient work force. A population that can largely not think for themselves, nor care to. If our education system was truly designed to produce the best, brightest, most aware, and educated population, I think you would see more mentoring, more experienced based learning, less standardized testing. In fact, our entire culture and society would be completely different. There would be less of a class system, less homeless, more compassion, more empathy, less focus on materialism and consumption, less competition and more cooperation. I could go on, but I am tired right now.
This is a great discussion by the way, thank you Aaron, Mike, Chris, Norman, and the rest of you for your thoughts. Hopefully it will continue!
posted by Sean Abrahams on February 1, 2006 #
It is nice to know Sean, that my remark and those of others opened a new perspective. And I agree with you, that many experiences create creative thinking. However what I meant, was repeated pressure to follow the directions of others. It is comparable to what you say at the end of your reaction. If you want obedience, you repeatedly show people what you want of them and disallow them to have their own opinion or questions.
posted by Norman Dragt on February 2, 2006 #
Sean: If you’re saying all kinds of experience can only be good, I have to disagree. Traumas I alluded to such as death and divorce easily lead to self-doubt, depression (the antithesis of imagination), and all kinds of pathological behavior. Even if we exclude these, it’s not simply a question of more or less experience. Take two kids, one of whom starts practicing sex at age n, and the other at n + 4. The latter does not have less experience with life, just a different set of experiences, the value of which should not be minimized. It’s useful here to consider why parents (now) oppose teen pregnancy. Parenthood is widely regarded as a positive experience, but not when it deprives teens of the remaining part of their childhood, a period allowing them to evaluate opportunities for the future that should not be squandered.
I think you’re overreacting to my shorthand term “bad people,” one I assure you I don’t use with my daughter. The point is from her eyes, it’s a meaningless distinction. She now has to get her head around the idea of people whose very goal is to hurt other people — inevitable, but a revelation that sure could have waited. And if someone takes away something of hers, I’m going to tell her “that’s wrong,” not the passive “It’s okay sweetie, apparently they needed it more than you do.” Can you see why the latter would be a cause for anxiety? (BTW: while iPods are readily fenceable and there have been no arrests, the cops strongly suspect a teenager from a few blocks away who is unlikely to be suffering from material deprivation. For what it’s worth…)
I’m also taken aback at your strongly negative reaction to the idea of an afterlife. I’m sorry if you had a difficult time shedding the belief, but I don’t see “this is all there is” and a future of being devoured by worms to be particularly motivating, either. Most major religions hold that good works in this life leads to a superior afterlife (or reincarnation for Hindus and Buddhists), so it appears to be a common motivating factor.
And I do agree the outcomes of public education are sub-optimal. My only point (perhaps a minor one) is one shouldn’t assume the embodiment of malevolent power interests the way Bible-thumpers do for Satan.
posted by Mike Sierra on February 2, 2006 #
In the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”
Let’s take a jaundiced view of the case, OK? On the one had, we have a set of officials who hage lied about the benefits of these programs in that past, whose interests are clearly served by making a case for “damage”, and who are now asking us to take their claims on faith. On the other hand, we have other unnamed individuals whose interests are not served by their claims, and who aren’t being served by their disclosures.
I’m willing to be open-minded zbout the possibility of damage—but given the number of lies we’ve gotten about that so far, I’m demanding real evidence. Negroponte has plenty of time to find a “damaged asset” and demonstrate the damage.
posted by Dave on February 3, 2006 #
Mike Sierra: While I don’t believe that the poor quality of (public or private) education is due to a single Machiavellian entity, I do think that it’s partly due to the combined actions of various interest groups. I recently came across this tidbit on Boingboing, where Wil McCarthy wants us all to get excited over a new technology he’s exploring — “Quantum Wells”. So I thought, “hey, this sounds exciting, how can I contribute to it?” Guess what, I can’t; this stuff is being surrounded by a huge barrier of patents. Now you know where all the “pointless” facts to memorize come from: there’s a lot of knowledge out there that we can’t even use.
posted by bi on February 5, 2006 #
bi: I totally agree it’s the “combined actions of various interest groups.” Even if we were relatively focused in our vision of what an education ought to be, articulating a goal and implementing it in an institutional setting are two different matters. At times I wish we were dealing with a Machiavelli, since at least he was a smart guy. Every week I get this criminally endless, picayune email blast from the local principal, titled “Thursday Announcements,” and I’ve been noticing that lately it’s been coming in on Wednesdays and Tuesdays. Based on what I’ve encountered so far, getting them to retitle it might require a meeting with input from other parents.
posted by Mike Sierra on February 6, 2006 #
Aaron,
I feel like we read different books - perhaps you haven’t been really fair to Postman… In “The Disappearance of Childhood” Postman is very clear that he can’t make any claims that childhood going is, in any absolute sense, good or bad. But he admits that he has an emotional and nostalgic attachment to the concept of childhood.
The book is useful because it helps us understand where this whole idea of childhood innocence comes from. Just telling people that it wasn’t always this way is very helpful.
But the core argument is about the merger of the adult and child into continuous teen. Postman tries to avoid admitting he doesn’t like this change but he can’t help himself.
TV isn’t the real world. For example, most people have extraordinary ideas about childbirth which have no relationship to reality. 300,000 women give birth around the world every day. Most of them do it at home yet TV would have us believe that unless it happens lying in a bed at hospital the mother will drop dead.
Postman (in 1982 remember) points out in this book many useful trends such as how children watch post-threshold ‘adult’ TV and adults include children’s programmes in their list of all-time favourites.
The book, for me, is about opening debate on what society wants… more of this trend of becoming a teenager from 3 to 35 or something else?
So what do we want?
Jason
posted by Jason Kitcat on February 7, 2006 #
Here’s Postman in the preface to the second edition:
I certainly don’t recall Postman saying any such thing and the above quote (“favorite … book”, “sad”, “unpalatable”, “[in need of] solutions”, “delighted [to reverse]”) doesn’t sound like the kind of words you would use for something you have only a nostalgic attachment to.
Actually, most US television shows take place in the US, where 99% of childbirths are at a hospital. †
If we’re going to have a debate, perhaps Postman should offer some arguments for his side, instead of simply assuming he’s obviously right.
posted by Aaron Swartz on February 7, 2006 #
To find the disappearance of childhood “painful and embarrassing and, above all, sad” (pp xiii 2nd Ed) Is, in my view, a personal expression of regret but not an argument in any absolute moral or ethical framework that it’s disappearance is wrong. I think nostalgia is an eminently appropriate way to describe Postman’s writings - in the final chapter he talks of keeping a previous age with it’s “Monastery Effect” alive through careful parenting. Is that not nostalgic?
It’s true that unfortunately most US children are born in hospitals. Hence the relatively high US infant mortality rate and massive number of complications and caesarians. But in the UK much TV is made in the UK, in Holland it’s made in Holland etc. The lowest home birth rate in Holland was 1/3 back in the 80s it’s gone up ever since. Nevertheless birth is shown in hospital lying down. Lying down is the worst possible position to give birth in! I digress.
My point was that TV is not reflective of reality, not even news is. So there aren’t as many murders, terrorist plots, coincidences etc as we experience in life. TV is hyper-real, a recent study in the UK (whose reference I’m trying to track down) showed how characters in British dramas wouldn’t be able to afford the cars and homes they were portrayed to own.
I’m sure you know the jokes about how in Friends nobody ever works yet they live pretty well.
Perhaps Postman is at fault for believing his findings are obvious. But that’s a truly extraordinary and brave thing for him to do when the massive majority wouldn’t even be thinking along his lines…
As he writes in the introduction:
The book is an excellent, accessible overview of the history of childhood. The second part was, for me, intellectually rigourous and held true to my own life experiences as a 27-year old man expecting my first baby in 5 weeks.
You wrote:
I disagree, again I think the introduction, for example, clearly lays out why Postman mourns the loss of childhood:
You may disagree whether it matters if children lose these characteristics. But to find it difficult to take Postman seriously because he doesn’t express his arguments is unfair. Despite your implications he never proposes a paternalistic society where politicians are infallible or any such like. He clearly identifies himself as a liberal and struggles with how the Right may have been more aware of the loss of childhood then his own political brothers.
Your entire piece misrepresents the book. In the new preface he doesn’t praise the children for agreeing with him. To call such a heartfelt work tongue-in-cheek is extraordinary.
posted by Jason Kitcat on February 7, 2006 #
I don’t dispute that television (and perhaps especially the news) is unreal.
Saying you find it painful is a far cry from explaining why it’s bad — why do you find it painful? (Psuedo-adults aren’t curious or charming? Innocence and malleability are good things?)
He quotes children calling him “weird”, “not very good”, and arguing against him. Then he says “their main lesson for me is that children themselves are a force in preserving childhood”. It clearly seemed to me he was praising the children for agreeing with him, even after I reread the passage a couple times.
I just went back and reread the passage again and I see what you mean, though. I guess he must have been referring to the fact that the children weren’t arguing that the disappearance of childhood was good, they were arguing that it wasn’t happening, which he presumably interpreted as support for the idea of childhood. I’ve corrected the piece.
posted by on February 7, 2006 #
Aaron - I think all issues of import have been resolved. Thanks.
posted by Jason Kitcat on February 7, 2006 #
As I read the last few posts about the different ideas the book has created with its few readers on this weblog, one thing comes to mind. Nobody questions the fact that a human from an era in which childhood was something that was created through laws that forbid child labor, tries to answer his own questions about the disappearance of childhood. This is the famous dilemma of the fish researching water. For humans this would be their culture. Childhood is a western development from the late nineteenth begin twentieth century. It came to be, because business owners needed more and more skilled workers to create the more and more complex goods they were producing and handle the complex machinery they were using. So childhood really is a social construct. <br/> However to think that children agree with your idea that childhood should not disappear, is to assume that those children have the same idea about childhood that you have. Most children of today will take the information on television, internet, family and school about childhood as there reference points to understand what is meant by childhood, where mister Postman probably is from an era where school and family where the only reference points.
So what might be happening is that childhood is not disappearing, but changing into a form, that is unrecognisable to someone as mr. Postman.
posted by Norman Dragt on February 7, 2006 #
Jason, I understand this is a digression, but I was floored by your statement: It’s true that unfortunately most US children are born in hospitals. Hence the relatively high US infant mortality rate and massive number of complications and caesarians. High infant mortality compared to what, Sweden? Worldwide, the mortality rate is about 50 per 1,000 live births, while for the U.S. it’s 6.5. (This according to the CIA World Factbook.) So I don’t know what you mean by “massive number of complications.” And pretty much by definition, the only place you’d want to perform a C-section is in a hospital.
posted by Mike Sierra on February 8, 2006 #
I’m still trying to figure out how television as it is practiced—while visiting my parents the last few days, I’ve seen three families tortured and killed on Law and Order alone—has anything to do with the real world.
posted by adamsj on May 21, 2006 #
This is all fine and great about introducing kids to sex and everything, but I thought the huge spotlight was on how adults are becoming more and more simple?!
Never mind the children, I like it how we are demeaning culture to such 3rd grade level, that it literally brings our IQ down to watch half an hour of the View? Can I see someone in Congress about this? (lol)
posted by Nick Moore on December 7, 2007 #
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